General Chemistry for the Health Care Professions

General Chemistry
for the
Health Care Professions

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1-16. NAMING BASES

The most common bases are those included by the Classical Theory of Acids and Bases; that is, they are hydroxyl ion (OH ^-1) donors. Thus most of the bases are composed of the hydroxyl radical combined with a metallic cation.

The names for these bases are made by writing the name of the cation followed by "hydroxide." It is not normally necessary to use number prefixes because the valence of the cation tells us the number of hydroxyl radicals in each molecule. You can see that this method of naming bases is very similar to the mehod used for naming salts, except that the anion is always hydroxide. For example, NaOH is called sodium hydroxide and Ca(OH)₂ is called calcium hydroxide.

Examples

KOH is potassium hydroxide

Mg(OH)₂ is magnesium hydroxide

Fe(OH)₂ is ferrous hydroxide

Al(OH)₃ is aluminum hydroxide

Fe(OH)₃ is ferric hydroxide

Original content of this course is supplied by Academy of Health Sciences
Fort Sam Houston, Tx.